Controversy in Banana Industry

John Soluri 's Banana Cultures: Agriculture, Consumption and Environmental Change in Honduras and the United States, (Which for spatial and repetitive purposes, I will refer to as Banana Cultures for the remainder of the paper), introduces the reader to a world of corporate greed, consumption, and environmental change using the history of the common, everyday fruit, the banana. He explores the various political occurrences, health problems, and changes in mass media through the rise of the consumption of the banana in the United States, and around the globe.

Today, I want to talk about bananas. This familiar yellow fruits is nutritious, delicious, and good for you. But, most importantly, there are a trillion fun facts about it on the internet. Banana Fact: “Americans eat an average of 27 pounds of bananas per person every year, making them the most popular fruit in the U.S.” Banana fact: “Research shows that eating bananas may lower the risk of heart attacks and strokes, as well as decrease the risk of getting some cancers.” Banana fact: “Banana farms use extremely harmful pesticides including diazinon and chlorpyrifos, which when consumed can cause: diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, convulsions, and comas.” Banana fact: “Tortoises and manatees off the coast of Costa Rica are facing extinction partly due to the fact that pesticide runoff from banana plantations kills the algae on which they feed.” Now you might be thinking, those things aren’t really my problem, I’ve never gotten sick from a banana and tortoises aren’t doing bad, I saw one at the zoo once. Why is any of this important? And to that, allow me to read you this sweet native american quote Ms. Barber probably found on facebook, a few clicks away from my banana facts. "Treat the earth well. It was not given to you by your

We eat bananas almost every day; however, most of us do not really know where these fruits come from. In Banana Cultures, John Soluri focuses on the relationship between banana production in Honduras, especially in the North Coast between roughly 1870 and 1975, and banana consumption in the U. S.. He focuses on growing, protecting, transporting, and mass marketing of bananas. John Soluri integrates Agroecology, anthropology, political economy, and history in order to trace the symbolic growth of the banana industry. The author admits that his work is highly interdisciplinary, as a desirable trait in the academic world. The study incorporates a wide range of sources, including manuscript census data from Honduras, fruit company records, published scientific records, Honduran and U.S government correspondence, oral testimonies, and ephemera from U.S mass culture. Throughout his work, he combines elements of geography, biology, social history, foreign affairs, and environmental history. Soluri also looks at labor practices and worker’s lives, changing gender roles on the banana plantations, and the effects of pesticides in the Honduran environment and people. His central argument is that United States consumption of bananas causes major social, political, and environmental change in Honduras. In addition, he looks at the banana pathogens, the ways the United States treated these fungal diseases, and the terribly detrimental effects these new treatments had on the farmers on

"Agriculture is undoubtedly the most important activity for the majority of the world’s poor, and at the same time it is the most protected sector in industrial countries." Agriculture continues to play an important role throughout the world, while in recent years, farmers have been negatively and positively affected by the trade agreements established by both the WTO and Fair Trade system; specifically the banana and coffee farmers. The government's role was to liberalize trade by reducing tariffs and they initiated this by introducing GATT (General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs). This was an agreement between countries that slowly expanded to include countries. Agricultural Trade was left out of the GATT due to the U.S. and European Union "banana war." This is a trade dispute between the US and EU on how the bananas are sourced and imported, even though neither one of these countries are the banana growers. The GATT was later re-established as the WTO (World Trade Organization). As Weis stated, The WTO's Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) came into effect in 1995 and constitutes a major landmark in the development of the global food economy as its set in place, for the first time, multilateral rules restricting the sovereignty of governments to establish their own agricultural policies. Their main focus was to establish a fair and market-oriented agricultural trading system. Their objective is to entrench and extend the rights of transnational capital in trade and

The Brazilian acai berry has been a food staple for low income families for years and a cultural symbol for generations. This berry is vital in Brazil, where it is farmed and, until recently had a relatively small market. However, after an Oprah interview the demand for acai has become an international affair. The rising demand has created a free market; however the once inexpensive food staple has become too expensive for the low income families. This report will analyse the current markets advantages and disadvantages, followed by two possible government intervention models. The examined interventions will be export tariff and price ceiling.

Banana is a commodity that is widely used worldwide. Bananas are neither too extravagant, nor too expensive meaning that anyone and any level of socio-economic status can purchase them, from the very poor to the very wealthy. Bananas can be found at any brand name store, farmers market, or flea market. Bananas are commodities that are highly valued, traded, and desired. The success of the banana can be attributed to the fact that it can be grown and harvested all year long in different parts of the world. The success lies in the mass production, distribution and consumption of these goods. However, there is an ugly reality people are exploited, countries and people are complete dependent economically on bananas, and countries and terrain are destroyed by those corporations that benefit the most from the distribution of bananas.

The Dominican Republic gets its wealth from the exportation of sugar, tobacco and coffee, but recently they have grown in the agriculture and telecommunications field. Another important part of this country’s economy is the tourism and remittances that are sent from the US or Europe. Haiti’s economy, on the other hand, due to corruption and poverty hasn’t been able to grow like the Dominican Republic’s. Part of this country’s economy beside the exportation of clothing to the United States, is remittances and agriculture (Dominican Republic vs. Haiti, n.d).

By 1993, the Banana Empire ceased to exist due to Panama Disease, ongoing labour issues, the rise of new competition and the increased assertiveness of host country governments all contributed to the growing intricacy of the industry. Nowadays, the modern banana farmer has been exposed to many pesticides, which have led to adverse health conditions for the majority of workers but working conditions and wages are on the rise currently. The introduction of fair trade bananas in 2004 was fundamental in bettering the working conditions for farmers and labourers.

It is also shown that pesticides are partly responsible for the rising cancer rates and birth defects among children (“Pesticides”).

The author of the book, “The Fate of the Fruit that Changed the World” (2008), Dan Koeppel, who is a famous journalist describes in a fascinating way banana’s cultural importance, threats associated with the crops of banana in the future and banana’ history. Banana is a very delicious fruit and is eaten all over the world. Banana is one of the world’s fourth largest harvests in the world. Dole and Chiquita are eminent American based distributors and producers of banana. They are claiming to produce the banana on low price. In this book, Koeppel discusses the risks associated to the plantation of banana around the world. He also discusses the fact that due to blight, the plantation of banana is destroyed (Koeppel, 2008). He points out that the farmers and the producers have no insight at all regarding this matter (Koeppel, 2008).

Finally, global economic issues have an immense influence on the world of coffee. Throughout history there has been a pattern that coffee producing countries are economically worse off than those that are consuming the coffee. Pendergrast mentions that “in 1950 the average income in consuming countries was three times that of coffee-growing nations. By the late 1960s it was five times great” (270). With that said, many producing coffee countries were facing endemics and malnourished peoples because workers were receiving absurdly low wages thus placing them into poverty and human suffering (271). Specifically, although 90 percent of El Salvador’s exports consisted of coffee in the 1930s, they agonized from “‘low wages, incredible filth…[under] conditions in fact not far removed from slavery’” (168). Global economic issues of these producing countries lead to dictators easily gaining power such as those in Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Honduras (170). Not only was politics a matter that resulted from global economic issues, “the high interest rates from financial institutions and price [squeezes]” lead to the economic struggle of farmers like those from Colombia due to

“Historically, the banana trade symbolized economic imperialism, injustices in the global trade market, and the exploitation of agriculture-dependent third-world countries”(2). However, they remain to be one of the most profitable items in grocery stores. Making bananas crucial to economic and global food stability for countries all over the world. They are the third largest staple crop, coming only after wheat and coffee. Since bananas are such a sought after fruit, many companies have gone to extensive lengths in the to fight for a share of the market. Chiquita Brands International was one of the pioneer companies to try and globalize bananas. They took a risk and made some very critical mistakes along the way.

While globalization is a relatively new phenomenon in theory, but not necessarily in history, as of 2009 it has created transnational corporations linked to government, international economic institutions, and non-government organizations. (Steger 67). With this definition bananas are a textbook example of the globalization of tropical fruit commodities. The transnational corporations of the United States, most notably Chiquita, Dole and Del Monte, have been linked to the governments of Latin and South America, the World Trade Organization, and the “organic” fruit movement. By tracing the path from banana plantations to supermarket it becomes clear how the “morals” of capitalism have permeated

This report details several international management problems that Chiquita has been faced with over the past two decades. Many of these problems are to do with the company’s previously poor image when it came to Corporate and Social responsibility. Over the years Chiquita faced many accusations about the conditions workers were faced with at many of their facilities in Latin America and have also had their environmental policies questioned many times in the press. The company has made great strides in recent years in improving their public image with regards to corporate and social responsibility. In particular Chiquita’s commitment to the Better Bananas Project has helped improve their public image along with the

Six firms dominated the banana industry in the early 1990’s, three from Europe and three from the United States. In 1994, the three United States producers, Chiquita, Dole, and Del Monte, accounted for approximately 72.4% of world banana sales. Chiquita accounted for 48% of worldwide banana sales and 66.4% of banana sales of the three U.S. producers.